Kudos & Kicks: Reviewing the good, bad and questionable

Kudos

The nation has been through so many natural disasters, it’s hard to imagine there already wasn’t a niche program meeting every storm victim’s needs.

The United Way of Collier County and Salvation Army identified one after Hurricane Irma and collaboratively served 71 income-constrained households by helping them cover insurance deductibles the storm victims were unable to afford.

The program has paid out $200,000 already to help cover home and auto deductibles on damages that added up to $1.15 million, data shows. About 250 people live in those affected households.

To qualify, the household income must be below $66,000. Applicants could seek either a $3,000 award toward the damaged home’s deductible or $1,500 for the vehicle deductible. Financial and personal identification records are required, as is proof of damages, and upon approval the payment goes to the vendor doing the repairs, not the screened applicant.

These are households struggling to make ends meet because the area’s high cost of living exhausts their paychecks, so they don’t have extra money readily available to handle unexpected circumstances. The assistance by no means covered their entire deductible — the 71 recipients faced deductibles of some $325,000 collectively. This was, however, a substantial $200,000 to help soften that blow.

Care was exercised to ensure there was no duplication with a Federal Emergency Management Agency program or aid rendered to disqualify the recipient from other assistance, United Way programs director Spencer Smith said.

For now, the program that’s operated from sites in East Naples and Immokalee is out of money. The need has proven to be more than double the dollars the United Way was able to allocate from its emergency funding pool.

There are pending applications from 91 households occupied by 340 people. These applicants seek $247,500 in home insurance deductible assistance toward a collective deductible total of about $357,000.

“There is still a significant need in our community for this program and we are currently exploring different options for additional funding,” Smith said.

The United Way and Salvation Army again deserve the community’s gratitude for assisting with recovery from Irma’s devastation.

Kick

While kudos are due to Bonita Springs voters who made the right decision in electing Laura Carr as their new District 3 representative, it’s discouraging there weren’t many more of them.

A scant 12.76 percent (683) of the 5,351 registered voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s city election, which had just one contest on the ballot.

That follows a February election when just 25.5 percent of Naples voters turned out to select three City Council members. Again, that was the only thing on the ballot.

The turnout at these two stand-alone city elections was fewer than 4,500 voters combined. Contrast that number for two elections with the November 2016 city election in Marco Island. Approximately twice as many voters participated in Marco’s election compared with the voter total for Bonita Springs and Naples combined.

Tied to a major election date, Marco voters cast a total of 34,465 ballots in selecting four council members at-large.

In the past, we’ve heard concerns about long lines for lengthy November ballots. But now with several days of early voting for fall elections and increasingly popular mail balloting, should that be the overriding concern for cities compared with a dismal turnout?

Two Bonita Springs polling sites were open for 12 hours Tuesday, each staffed by several precinct workers, to accommodate a total of about 100 people voting that day. Again, the lion’s share voted by mail.

We encourage both Naples and Bonita Springs councils to reassess their election dates to increase voter turnout.